Core-collapse supernovae in the great survey era

A new class of wide-field, repeated-scan optical sky surveys, such as LSST, is coming online, and will map the sky in the time domain with unprecedented depth, completeness, and dynamic range. A main science goal of LSST is to detect Type Ia supernovae, but the survey will also revolutionize our understanding of core-collapse events. LSST will observe ~ 10^5 core-collapse supernovae per year out to z ~ 1 and obtain the cosmic supernova rate by direct counting, in an unbiased way and with high statistics. Many science applications will therefore be feasible. Here, we discuss synergies with neutrino detectors, radio observations, and gamma-ray telescopes. The cumulative (anti)neutrino production from all core-collapse supernovae within our cosmic horizon gives rise to a diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB) which is on the verge of detectability. The observed flux depends on supernova physics, but also on the cosmic history of supernova explosions. The high precision measurement of the cosmic supernova rate will allow precise predictions of DSNB and make it a strong probe of optically invisible supernovae, which may be unseen either due to unexpected large dust obscuration in host galaxies, or because some core-collapse events proceed directly to black hole formation and fail to give an optical outburst. Another way to uncover optically invisible supernovae would be the next generation radio telescope, the Square Kilometer Array (SKA). SKA will be capable of unbiased synoptic searches over large fields of view with remarkable sensitivity and explode the radio core-collapse supernova inventory from the current number of several dozen in the local universe to ~ 600 yr^−1 deg^−2 out to z ~ 5. SKA will be complementary to LSST and together provide crucial information for dust evolution and star-formation at high redshift. Furthermore, supernovae are an important astrophysical input of the diffuse extragalactic gamma-ray background (EGB), which arises from an ensemble of unresolved extragalactic gamma-ray sources. Although the EGB has been detected by the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope, its source spectrum remains unsettle. We will discuss the EGB contributions from cosmic rays accelerated by supernovae in both star-forming and quiescent galaxies. LSST will provide crucial information about supernovae and their host galaxies, and therefore enable more precise EGB predictions that will disentangle the EGB emissions from different source candidates.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Astronomy

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2013

Author dc:creator

• Lien, Amy Y.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Fields, Brian D.
• Brunner, Robert J.
• Chu, You-Hua
• Ricker, Paul M.

• Supernovae
• Synoptic surveys
• Particle astrophysics
• High-energy astrophysics
• Radio surveys
• Gamma rays
• Neutrinos

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2011 Amy Y. Lien

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/26341

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/26341